The most helpful favourable review

The most helpful critical review

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 starsLoved it!
This is the first of a two-volume biography. This book recently won the Charles Taylor prize for literary non-fiction in Canada. I scuttled down to the library I patronize in a town south of here and was pleased to find they had a copy. It was terrific, although Gwyn has an unfortunate writing style of frequently inserting commas to isolate one word or setting bits of a...

3.0 out of 5 starsDisappointing and opinionated
Gwyn gives his opinion of events and omits important background. I could give numerous examples but have selected only one.He describes the Privy Council's rulings in favour of the Provinces after Confederation on constitutional matters as 'quirky'.In fact the rulings were guided by the arguments of Edward Blake, leader of the Liberal Party after...

This is the first of a two-volume biography. This book recently won the Charles Taylor prize for literary non-fiction in Canada. I scuttled down to the library I patronize in a town south of here and was pleased to find they had a copy. It was terrific, although Gwyn has an unfortunate writing style of frequently inserting commas to isolate one word or setting bits of a sentence apart in em dashes that I felt interrupts the flow.

He manages to make pre-Confederation parliament interesting. Usually in books about this time we get a lot about the Family Compact, but Gwyn has kept the focus on developments and personalities that I do not remember being featured in other Canadian history books.

I found the book bogged down slightly during the pages about Confederation which is why I only gave it 4 stars. It's hard to make political wrangling interesting, although I did find it fascinating that we were not quite the valued colony I had thought; Britain was pretty happy to let us go. Anti-Americanism literally made Canada a country but our fear of the American military after the U.S. Civil War never came to fruition. I have a keen interest in the U.S. Civil War so appreciated some analysis of how that affected Canada.

I can't wait for volume two!!! I'll be interested to compare Pierre Berton's writing about Macdonald in The National Dream and The Last Spike to what Richard Gwyn has to say about those times. This is an excellent book and it's wonderful to see a fresh treatment of this period in Canadian history.

Gwyn gives his opinion of events and omits important background. I could give numerous examples but have selected only one.He describes the Privy Council's rulings in favour of the Provinces after Confederation on constitutional matters as 'quirky'.In fact the rulings were guided by the arguments of Edward Blake, leader of the Liberal Party after Confederation, the man who would have been our second Prime Minister, had he not resigned the leadership in favour of his lieutenant, Alexander Mackenzie.The Privy Council was the highest court in Canadian jurisprudence for a very long time; it has now been replaced by the Supreme Court, members of which are appointed by the federal government, which of course does not want interpretations of the BNA Act which favour the Provinces.In fact it was a Canadian lawyer - a man, who, unlike Gwyn, was Canadian born - Edward Blake, who persuaded the Council in favour of the Provinces. Below is a passage from one of his speeches to it. Blake was perhaps the greatest orator in the English language in our history. Macdonald was afraid of him. He is mentioned only once, briefly, by Gwyn.

Read it and ask yourself: should a decision influenced by such a speech be fairly described as 'quirky'?

Edward Blake to the Privy Council, 1888

"The word federal is the key which unlocks the clauses and reveals their contents. It is the glass that enables us to discern what is written. By its light the Act must be construed. What then was the general scheme of this Act ? First of all, as I suggest, it was to create a federal as distinguished from a legislative union, but a union composed of several existing and continuing entities. It was not the intention of Parliament to mutilate, confound and destroy the provinces mentioned in the preamble, and having from their mangled remains stewed in some legislative cauldron, to evoke by some legislative incantation absolutely new provinces into an absolutely new existence. It was the design, I say, by gentle and considerate terms to preserve the vital breath and continue the political existence of the old provinces. However this may be, they were being made, as has been well said, "not fractions of a unit but units of a multiple". The Dominion is the multiple and each province is a unit."

St.Catherine’s Milling and Lumber Company v. The Queen

Note: The case concerned timber licenses and whether the federal government or the province, in this case Ontario, had jurisdiction. The provinces have jurisdiction and the revenue from the licenses to this day.(I think the quote is from Oliver Mowat. Both Mowat and Blake were Liberal Premiers of Ontario).

Vision, principle, honesty, integrity. These are the qualities of virtuous men and the epithets of political losers. Just ask author Richard Gwyn. In John A MacDonald: The Man Who Made Us, Gwyn provides the reader with the historical context and honesty to paint a realistic picture of MacDonald's early life and rise to power.

This isn't a heroic story of one man's will and passion to build a nation. Rather, it's a story of crass political expediency to obtain power. Forget about principles, ideology and vision...as John A demonstrates, these things are merely impediments to Canadian statesmen.

John A: The Man Who Made Us, shows the real formula for power is having the political savvy to see shifts in public attitude and opinion and knowing the right time to adopt the cause. Once again, Richard Gwyn does an excellent job of highlighting the very practical nature of John A's political modus operandi and the wheeling and dealing amongst provincial politicians, businessmen and colonial officials in Britain, that brought about the Dominion of Canada.

This is a great read for anyone wishing to have a deeper understanding of Canada's history and of our first Prime Minister.

This is a great up-to-date biography of John A Macdonald. It follows Macdonald from when his family first moved to Upper Canada to when Canada achieved Confederation in 1867. It gives a great account of all aspects of Macdonald's life: his family and early years, his first marriage, his law career, his political career, his second marriage, and the Confederation conferences. The book also explores what early Canada was like, and Gwyn also accounts for the other personalities of the time; these personalities include people like George Brown and George Etienne Cartier. The book is very readable and some illustrations are included. I think the most difficult aspect of the book was trying to understand how the political system worked in pre-Confederation Canada; Gwyn does a good job of explaining a complicated system. Overall, this is a great book, and I learned a lot about Macdonald and pre-Confederation Canada. I look forward to reading Gwyn's follow-up which is about Macdonald's life after Confederation.

This is a great up-to-date biography of John A Macdonald. It follows Macdonald from when his family first moved to Upper Canada to when Canada achieved Confederation in 1867. It gives a great account of all aspects of Macdonald's life: his family and early years, his first marriage, his law career, his political career, his second marriage, and the Confederation conferences. The book also explores what early Canada was like, and Gwyn also accounts for the other personalities of the time; these personalities include people like George Brown and George Etienne Cartier. The book is very readable and some illustrations are included. I think the most difficult aspect of the book was trying to understand how the political system worked in pre-Confederation Canada; Gwyn does a good job of explaining a complicated system. Overall, this is a great book, and I learned a lot about Macdonald and pre-Confederation Canada. I look forward to reading Gwyn's follow-up which is about Macdonald's life after Confederation.

Richard Gwyn has done a great service to Canadians by providing a new biography of John A Macdonald for the general public. He does a fine job of pulling together the research and providing a full and fair picture of the man who played a huge role in making Canada the country it was at the beginning, and therefore what it is today. Sir John A was known for his drinking, and here the drinking is dealt with clearly but not luridly. Gwyn makes astute observations on how John A's drinking did and did not affect the course of his career.

After reading the first volume, getting a hold of the second is a no-brainer.

Found this a most enlightening book as an immigrant with little to no knowledge of Canadian History. I look forward to reading Volume 2. This is a most sympathetic and understanding portrait of the famous man. It explains rather than excuses his drinking issues, and points out the quantity of ordinary unglamorous hard work that he accomplished in running the country. A good read.

This biography of John A, Macdonald, our first Canadian prime minister is truly inspiring. Every Canadian ought to read it. Sir John A. helped make Canada possible by finding ways to accommodate so many diverse elements of population, political points of view, and aspirations.